Luck of the Draw buff getting buffed in 4.0.6

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Kalliope
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Luck of the Draw buff getting buffed in 4.0.6

Unread post by Kalliope »

I have bolded and italicized a greatly amusing passage as well.
Ghostcrawler wrote:In case you aren't already aware, Luck of the Draw is the name of the buff you get for grouping with random people using Dungeon Finder. It currently provides a 5% buff to damage, healing, and health if you have at least one random player in your group. With patch 4.0.6, we are increasing this buff to 5% damage, healing, and health per random player, up to a maximum of 15%.

In the process of working on this change we actually discovered that the Luck of the Draw buff has not been working in Cataclysm at all, save for a few specific dungeons. This means that the difficulty in almost all normal and Heroic dungeons for those using the Dungeon Finder tool was higher than expected. Still, with that issue corrected in 4.0.6, we feel the bump up to 15% for three or more random players found through the Dungeon Finder is a necessary change.

The intent of Luck of the Draw is to help make up for the lack of coordination, communication, and familiarity that pick up groups suffer relative to organized groups of guild members and friends. Cataclysm dungeons, especially on Heroic mode, are quite challenging and ask for more group organization than the Wrath of the Lich King dungeons did. Therefore, Luck of the Draw became relatively weaker in Cataclysm. I'm painting the picture with unfairly large brush strokes here, but in general, Heroic dungeons are of appropriate difficulty for organized groups, but just brutal on Dungeon Finder groups. Players wonder, and rightly so, why Dungeon Finder supports Cataclysm Heroic dungeons at all when the chance of success is so low.

We think buffing Luck of the Draw is a good way to go about correcting the difficulty differences because it makes things slightly easier on PUGs without depriving the organized groups of a fun challenge. We also think the bonus is modest enough that it won't encourage organized groups to split up and just PUG instead - - the success rate for PUGs relative to organized groups is just that far behind. We still think you'll have more fun and a greater chance of success running dungeons with friends, but when that isn’t possible, we hope this change will make Dungeon Finder a more pleasant experience. Also remember that patch 4.0.6 is adjusting the difficulty of some bosses that are particularly unforgiving, such as Ozruk in Heroic Stonecore, though to be fair, we are buffing some underperforming encounters as well. In addition, we are offering larger Justice Point rewards for players who just prefer the faster pace and greater success rate of normal dungeons, and by the time 4.1 comes out everyone will have access to more powerful gear, making the older content even easier. But then there'll be new challenges to face!

We'd like to thank everyone who has provided us with feedback. We do listen, even if we don't immediately deploy every design change suggested by the player community. Our intent is to make the game fun for a wide variety of players, which can be quite a challenge when you have a community this large and this varied. We hope you continue to enjoy the game, and look forward to sharing more changes (and a few surprises) in the months ahead.

-Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft and was attacked by a coati as a child. (True story.)

(Source)
Yes, kids, this is one reason why pugged heroics have been so hard in Cataclysm! :lol:

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Anyia
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Re: Luck of the Draw buff getting buffed in 4.0.6

Unread post by Anyia »

Kalliope wrote:Yes, kids, this is one reason why pugged heroics have been so hard in Cataclysm! :lol:
Uh-huh. And flying pigs is the reason why you wear a helmet when on a bike.

The sarcasm aside, this is probably a good approach to making heroic pugs less painful. Hopefully it won't completely negate the need for cc - people need to learn to use their toolbox! :)

I must say that as a hunter, the whale shark achievement is almost what the Rhok'delar quest was for teaching people how to kite! I'm still torn on whether I think it was fun or just incredibly painful, but I'm definitely feeling like I achieved something when I finally killed it at the far end of Vashj'ir.

I might only have achieved the wasting of an hour (I died a few times), but I did it in style!
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Re: Luck of the Draw buff getting buffed in 4.0.6

Unread post by Tudyk »

*shrug*

Short version:
A buff to health/healing/damage wouldn't have prevented the great majority of deaths/wipes I've seen in Heroics, anyways. But it'll be really nice for my bro and his wife (Bro just did his first heroic with us yesterday by equipping a helm and ring with +hit as a healer, the wife's still 2 itemlevel points away).

Long version:
It could make life a bit less painful for PuG tanks and healers (both by buffing them personally, and by shortening fights due to increased overall DPS), but it's not going to move people's chars out of fire. It's not going to give warlocks the fear glyph, or teach hunters where to put their traps. It's not going to encourage a DK to stop DPSing for 1.5 seconds to hit an interrupt, or a mage to do likewise to dispell a curse.

I don't blame Blizzard for doing what they can to satisfy the majority of the playerbase's concerns (I know I certainly felt like my rawrbear's gear would have been insufficient without an overgeared healer even though the dungeon finder let me in), but I think a lot of people who have been complaining about heroic difficulty aren't going to see this help them out very much. =D

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Re: Luck of the Draw buff getting buffed in 4.0.6

Unread post by Kalliope »

Anyia wrote:
Kalliope wrote:Yes, kids, this is one reason why pugged heroics have been so hard in Cataclysm! :lol:
Uh-huh. And flying pigs is the reason why you wear a helmet when on a bike.
One reason, not THE reason. :P Getting this buff back will make it loads easier to carry pugs who just won't let your CC stand, and other assorted problems.
Anyia wrote:The sarcasm aside, this is probably a good approach to making heroic pugs less painful. Hopefully it won't completely negate the need for cc - people need to learn to use their toolbox! :)
The problem is that it won't. The bad players are for the most part going to stay bad. How can I tell? Because we're a few months into Cataclysm already and people still aren't using their toolboxes, even though they should HAVE to do it without the buffs.
Tudyk wrote:I don't blame Blizzard for doing what they can to satisfy the majority of the playerbase's concerns (I know I certainly felt like my rawrbear's gear would have been insufficient without an overgeared healer even though the dungeon finder let me in), but I think a lot of people who have been complaining about heroic difficulty aren't going to see this help them out very much. =D
You'll be surprised as to how much can be brute-forced through, even in Cataclysm, with enough firepower. We can already do that with some raiding gear. It might not save the people who stand in fire, but it will overall make it possible for the better/better-geared players to carry those who don't know how to do the fights.

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Re: Luck of the Draw buff getting buffed in 4.0.6

Unread post by Vampiretooth »

They can buff this, but the sad thing (and fact) here is: this will not change the player base. Pugs can be painful experience (insults, elitism wannabes and more). I started to play WoW in WoTLK era and didn't know what the TBC times were. Well, now i can see it. I just hope that many players will begin to use their brain...
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